July 1931. Records that still stand include 118º at Las Vegas, 108º at Winnemucca and Minden, and 105º at Austin. Unofficially the mercury rose to 131º at the
construction site of the Boulder Dam during this extreme heat wave.*

January 1937 froze the Silver State in its tracks.

Unfortunately, there is no record of the instrumentation and exposure available to make it official. The July 1931 Climatological
Data for Nevada reported: "Drought conditions continue severe. In a few places a second crop of alfalfa was harvested, but on many projects the water on hand did not serve to mature a
second crop. Much grain was cut for fodder. Gardens and the potato crop were largely destroyed. Streams and springs failed and ranges deteriorated. Near the close of the month many ranchers were buying feed for
their stock or preparing to ship them to pastures out of the State."

*U.S. official record high temperature is 134º at Death Valley, California, recorded on July 10, 1913.

Nevada's Coldest Month: Tie between January 1937 & December 1990

Old timers may remember 1937, the chilliest month in Nevada's history. (The coldest winter
season was 1948-49.) In fact, two separate cold waves in Jan. 1937 kept the Silver State in the deep freeze and set many all-time record low temperatures for Nevada and California that
still stand. The U.S. Climatological Data report says it all: "January 1937 was the coldest month for the State as a whole since records were kept. New low temperatures were
established at many stations in the northern and western portions of the State.

The extreme cold snap of December 1990 broke many longstanding temperature records.

Precipitation was above normal at most stations, well distributed over the State, and occurred mostly in the form of snow. Heavy snows covered
most of the range growth and necessitated heavy feeding of livestock. Drifts that blocked outlying roads most of the month have also hampered the moving and feeding of livestock.
Crusted snow has prohibited the use of part of the winter range area. Several lives were lost in widely scattered portions of the State due to extreme cold and snowbound highways."

The brutal cold wave of 1937 began when a frigid air mass rolled into the Great Basin
during the first week of January, which sent the mercury plummeting until minus 50º set a new State record at San Jacinto in Elko County on the 8th. (The previous record of 45º below zero
— set on December 19, 1924 — also occurred at San Jacinto, a mile-high basin located near the Idaho border.) Reno plunged to minus 16º in Jan. 1937, just three degrees shy of the city's
record low of –19º set in January 1890.

A second Arctic intrusion bulldozed into the region 10 days later and reinforced the frigid air
already entrenched in the Intermountain West. On January 20, 1937, weather observers at Boca, California noted a thermometer reading 45º below zero, the Golden State's all-time
lowest recorded temperature. Overnight temperatures in eastern Nevada were in the deadly subzero range, minus 30ºs and 40ºs during January 1937, but in the usually milder western
valleys conditions were only slightly better. Downtown Reno plunged to –16º on January 8, exactly 47 years to the day of the city's all-time record low, set on January 8, 1890.

Far to the south in Las Vegas, gamblers were chilled to the bone when the thermometer
dropped to 10º on January 22. For the State as a whole that month, the mean temperature was only 13.5º, nearly 16 degrees below the average for the previous 49 years. Las Vegas
reported the highest monthly mean temperature

A bitter east wind on Lake Tahoe in Dec. 1990 coated the lake's west shore in ice.

— a chilly 33.6º. That average was downright balmy compared to the monthly mean of only 5º experienced by residents at Battle Mountain.
Nevadans struggled with broken water pipes, dead batteries and frozen radiators in their automobiles and also had to deal with plenty of snow. More than 26" fell in Reno, 32" in Carson
City, and more than 6½ feet at Marlette Lake, most in the State. Hundreds of travelers were stranded across Nevada by the deadly combination of cold temperatures and drifting
snow. For more than 60 years, January 1937 has retained the crown as the coldest month in State history, but the weatherwise citizen will always give respect to the severe cold snap of December 1990.

December 1990 was one of the coldest months since records were first kept in the Silver
State more than a century ago. In fact, it shares the podium with the coldest month of all, January 1937. The other winners in the "Top Ten" coldest months include January 1890,
January 1913, January 1917, December 1924, December 1932, January 1949, December 1972, and February 1989. During the brutal cold snap of December 1990, at least 16
locations, with between 30 and 113 years of record, set new low temperatures for any month, with 2 to 3 times that many just missing all-time lows but establishing new minima for
December. The State's long-standing December low of minus 45º, set in 1924 in San Jacinto was broken, as minus 46º was recorded at Mountain City during the peak of the pre-Christmas
cold snap. (The – 46º at Mountain City ranks second only to the minus 50º set in January 1937 as Nevada's all-time lowest temperature.)

It is estimated that 175 – 200 inches of snow fell near Mt. Rose in February 1986.

The 1990 Arctic intrusion plunged deep into Nevada; Boulder City dropped to 9º, exceeding the 1937 record by 2º. Carson City
registered a minus 19º and Reno recorded a minimum of 13º below zero. The coldest air during this event settled in over the central and eastern portions of the Silver State where
many observers reported all-time record lows for ANY month with temperatures below minus 40º in several locations, but residents and visitors in western Nevada also shivered
during this severe cold wave. In the Sierra only the bravest skiers and boarders ventured out to the slopes where frostbite warnings were
posted; on Slide Mountain the wind chill registered 52º below zero. Other Sierra stations reported brutally cold readings; South Lake Tahoe fell to 17º below zero; Markleeville 25º
below; and Truckee hit minus 28º.

Much of the Nevada weather data posted here was previously published in the Nevada Climate Summary, a monthly review issued by John W. James, State
Climatologist. Nevada Climate Summaries are available at Nevada libraries. More information may be obtained by email.